Dinosaurs evolved on Earth some 240 million years ago. They became the dominant species that roamed Earth, like humans today, some 200 million years ago. So, they ruled on planet Earth for a period of around 135 million years as dominant species, till they went extinct some 65 million years ago.
Earth has faced 5 major extinction events till to date and the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event was the one that was responsible for the extinction of Dinosaurs on earth. Almost 75% of species on Earth became extinct during this period. It is today widely believed that this mass extinction event was caused by a massive comet or asteroid impact, at least 10-15 kilometer wide.
If that asteroid missed colliding with Earth
For a moment, let us assume that this latest mass extinction event on Earth did not occur. Which would mean that planet Earth today would have been dominated, not by humans, not by mammals, but by reptiles. Dinosaurs were reptiles. Reptiles cannot regular their body heat, while mammals can. Reptiles lay eggs, while mammals give birth to live young.
So, in case the mass extinction event did not happen, then probably an intelligent reptilian life form would have evolved on Earth? So instead of the mammal humans, some reptilian humans, intelligent dinosaurs would have been walking on this planet today.
Imagine Earth filled with intelligent reptiles.
Eggs in Maternity Hospitals and Humans in Zoo
The maternity hospitals would be filled with, not expecting mothers, but eggs laid by expecting mothers. Doctors would be monitoring health of the eggs, giving it all kinds of protection, till it hatched, and the day it hatched, parents would come to the hospital to pick up their new born.
Mammals would have still evolved, in this reptile dominated world, but not as intelligent species, but as, just another mammal. Humans would be as intelligent as a crocodile today, and probably would be sitting in zoos run by dinosaurs. The dino kids would be laughing at humans behind the cage, like humans do to other animals today.
It is also possible that intelligent reptiles would be having cute humans as pets, like we have dogs and cats! Selective breeding of pets over time would create a wide variety of human breeds. Some human breeds would be in great demand in this reptilian world as pets, like the Rottweiler, Saluki and Akita dog breeds of today!
The Jurassic Park produced and directed by Dinosaurs
What about Jurassic Park then? Well, there still would be Jurassic Park and Lost World produced in a reptile dominated world, except that the inhabitants of the Park would be dangerous humans, pets gone wild. Innocent reptiles with their kids would visit a dangerous park filled with humans from the wild. The story would be how brave reptiles saved their kids from humans.
What about reptilian urban world? Reptiles have long and strong tails. Imagine urban transportation for intelligent reptiles. The bus seats would have holes so that the reptile passengers can rest their tails behind the seat. Most common fights picked up in buses and cinema theaters in this reptilian world would be of reptiles stamping the tails of those sitting in their front seats, because the tails would be peeping out in the back through the seat holes.
The alien movies like Predator, Men in Black, Independence Day, etc would have ugly looking mammals as dangerous extra terrestrials. The good giant reptilian protagonists would be up against tiny cunning mammalian antagonists.
Do Flying Machines exist in Intelligent Reptilian World?
However, one question would be, given the huge weight of these dinosaurs, would there be any flying machines invented at all by the giant dinos walking on land? Would there be aeroplanes flying with dinosaur passengers? Or the flying would be only restricted to reptilian bird forms?
Another curious question is, how religion would evolved among dinosaurs? The dinosaur God would obviously not have a human form, but would be having a dinosaur form.
Given the average size of these huge dinosaurs, the streets and roads in a dino world would be some 10 times larger than what we have today in our world. So dinosaur inhbaited cities would extremely big. Given their huge weight, dinosaurs would be causing pollution a lot more than humans. Imagine, a two wheeler with a dinosaur, the amount of force it needs to move it and the fuel required! Every two wheeler would be like a rocket used by humans.
Dinosaur Extinction due to Pollution and Wars
This would also mean that dinosaurs would over populate Earth much sooner than humans. They would be consuming resources at scales n times more than humans. So, a population of one billion dinosaurs would fill up Earth in a way equivalent to around 10-15 billions of humans! The dinosaur world would pollute the Earths atmosphere a lot more quicker than humans did. And the global warming would appear at an accelerating rate, finally ending up the dinosaur species, and this would have happened say around 40-50 million years ago.
Then the Earth would take its time to get back to normalcy, evolution would again start from whatever species were left over earlier. Forests would grow back, ice age will be back, humans would start getting more intelligent slowly, civilization would start, and the world we live in today would start evolving.
In other words, even if that asteroid did not collide with Earth, and even if the dinosaurs did not go extinct then, they would eventually become intelligent and go extinct because of their intelligence caused pollution and wars. And some other mammalian intelligent species like humans would evolve anyway!
Lesson for Humans who anyways evolved, but have polluted and are warring
There in lies the lesson for we humans today, not to allow pollution and wars destroy us and make our intelligence look much more dumber than the dumbest species around. Else, what dinosaurs are today, extinct, we humans will be one day – and not because some asteroid hit us, but because we hit ourselves to extinction. Like the daemon Bhasmasura in ancient Indian texts – who destroyed himself without realizing the power of the boon he had.
After all we want to move up the ladder to the next stage of evolution. Isn’t it?
